


You Give Me Strength

by YuriSenpai



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Angst, Deaf Character, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, birthmark, deafness, transfer student
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 15:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19337020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YuriSenpai/pseuds/YuriSenpai
Summary: After nine long years, Mari returns to live and study in Japan as she prepares to take over her fathers business. Due to her reckless and obnoxious behaviour, Mari feels she may struggle to fit in and make friends - although there is only one person she shows a clear interest in.





	You Give Me Strength

**Author's Note:**

> woah okay I’ve been thinking about this FOR AGES and I’ve been dying to post and write it. This chapter is like a massive info dump rip but just wanna say thank you to a friend for giving me some info on Italian schools, and thanks to VTR for listening to be rant about this idea ahaha

Change was always stressful.

Moving houses was one thing, moving schools is another, but moving to a different country, in an entirely different part of the world - with an entirely different social system and culture was galaxies apart from anything Mari could have ever prepared herself for.

Of course, Mari had been to Japan before. She had been born and raised there for the first seven years of her life before moving to Italy, where she learnt to speak Italian. Between aged seven and sixteen, Mari has switched between living and studying in Italy and America, depending on where her fathers grand business took their family. At this point, Mari was used to change.

But coming back to Japan was different after spending time in western countries. It seemed daunting. Only few memories remained of her early life in Japan - consisting of her getting scolded for her brash and loud behaviour. In America, everything has been so relaxed and easy, being loud was more normal and the behaviour standards were a lot less intense. It wasn’t like Mari was overly intelligent or anything, but years of private tutors and private education made her a lot faster and seemingly smarter than her peers, so she found the work very easy. She found it extremely interesting that she got credits by just turning up to classes! 

Getting on well with the American Girls was easy enough. They were all similar to Mari, if not slightly less intelligent; all were friendly and outspoken, welcoming Mari from day one into their friendship group. With joy, Mari found great entertainment mixing and making friends with them. It didn’t matter which school in what part of America she got sent to, or if she spent two weeks there or a whole year, everyone was just as friendly as the next.

In Italy, she had attended a very prestigious, strict catholic school for her first few years living there, where had had been an average student, besides her unremarkable habit of unintentionally getting into trouble. Mari had hated it for the sheer amount of nothing she was allowed to do. Her wild and reckless behaviour seemed to be humoured by her classmates - but none of them ever joined in for fear of getting in trouble. Mari didn’t possess the same fear, which resulted in her suspension from her school countless times: multiple were for talking back to the nuns, which was apparently out of term (Mari definitely disagreed). When she finally hit eleven and returned from America once again, Mari managed to persuade her parents to let her go to a public school. Although reluctantly, they agreed, and sent her to a nearby school, where she fitted in perfectly.

 

Japan wasn’t like it used to be - the tests would be much harder, her peers would be hyper focused on getting good grades to move on to university, it was that age after all, and be much too busy to make friends so far into the second year. Studying was important, but Mari believed that having fun was an all-important life skill that made everything so much more enjoyable.

Now at sixteen years old, Mari would have to transfer straight into a new school that was already halfway through their year - no doubt everyone had already made friends and branched off into their own groups.

Mari didn’t worry. Not a lot worried her.

However, there was no question that it would be difficult to fit in. She was taller than average, possessed amber eyes and a head full of brightly coloured blonde hair - not very subtle at all, especially not in Japan. 

Not only would her looks hinder her process at making friends, it was her personality. She knew the Japanese girls would be quite reserved, polite and probably on the quieter side whereas Mari herself was a complete opposite: loud, severely lacking in respect of personal boundaries and her parents had told her on multiple occasions she was obnoxious at times.

But it was her first day, she didn’t want to make any bad impressions. Going with a sensible and mature look, Mari forwent her usual hair loop and intead tied her hair up. She made the ponytail loose, so some of her hair tumbled down, which would make her look smart but also give off the fun vibe she hoped the carry. Neat and tidy, Mari was ready to go.

Experienced as she was at making friends and meeting new people, Mari knew once she had entered that classroom, things were going to be much more difficult than she had originally anticipated. 

Unamused and slightly bored gazes hit her face as she stood before the class. Mari felt eyes immediately fly to her hair and tried to control the redness threatening to over take her face.

Her Japanese was extremely rusty, she had studied on the plane journey and thankfully recalled some of her old knowledge, although not done much learning otherwise - it was a miracle Mari somehow managed to remember how to introduce herself.

Trying to keep her voice soft and not overly loud of sharp, Mari smiled politely and introduced herself.

“Good morning, I am Mari Ohara. Nice to meet you all,”

In her haste to get the words out and in her embarrassment at saying her name the wrong way round, Mari almost forgot to bow afterwards. 

Sweeping her gaze over the class in front of her after raising her head, Mari bit the inside of her cheek. Making friends would be difficult. They all stared at her with extreme disinterest as the teacher chalked Mari's name out on the board behind her.

One girl, sitting at the back of the classroom next to the only empty seat, wasn’t even looking at Mari. She seemingly has her gaze locked downwards at her desk, hair covering most of her face. Another girl, sitting the other side of the girl having a staring contest with her desk, had dark blue hair and was staring out the window into space, her mind complete freed.

Mari sighed inwardly.

Did she really stick out so much that nobody wanted to even try making any effort with her?

After the introduction, Mari was given a fresh exercise book, a textbook and told to take the empty seat at the back of the classroom next to the dark haired girl. Mari slung her school bag on the floor next to the desk, a little roughly, and noticed the girl flinch a little. At least now the same girl was no longer staring intently downwards at the desk and instead faced forward with a blank expression.

Upon closer inspection, Mari found her rather pretty. She had beautiful emerald eyes with long eyelashes, dark eyebrows and pale skin which reflected her true natural beauty. A beauty mark sat just beneath the corner of her mouth. Her hair fell forward in a front fringe, thick, and her face was framed by more hair.

A sideways glance caught Mari staring.

Growing slightly flustered, she shook her head and offered a hand out with a cheery smile.

“Nice to meet you!” She whispered.

The other girl didn’t move her head to look at Mari, nor did she speak a word, instead she just nodded and moved her eyes back to the front.

Mari retracted her hand with a sour expression.

Rude.

 

Kurosawa Dia. 

That was the name of the rude yet pretty dark haired girl, as Mari discovered. Registration was difficult - keeping up with all the new Japanese names was a chore and muddled Mari sometimes, but that singular name managed to stand out. 

Dia seemed like a diligent worker, often scribbling away in class taking valuable notes, listening attentively, never getting distracted. One odd thing Mari did pick up on, is the strange hand movements Dia made with her hands. She held them out in front of her on the table, and moved them around a lot, always when the teacher was talking. With Dia's slender figures and flawless skin; as odd as they were, they were pleasing to watch,and Mari found herself getting distracted time and time again at the smooth movements.

Distractions aside, break time soon rolled around. Before Mari even got a chance to pursue her goal of actually being able to make conversation with the strange girl, she had vanished and a sea of other students had crowded around, wanting to know about where Mari was from.

Mari knew this sudden spike in popularity wouldn’t last, and already some of the students were giving her judgemental stares from across the classroom. It happened everywhere she went - they wanted to know who she was and where she was from, but after the initial interest wore off, Mari knew she would just blend into the background. 

None of the students interested her in particular. Just Dia.

But the person of her desires was still gone, and only returned shortly before the end of break, by which time the crowd had disappeared, leaving Mari sat awkwardly by herself.

“Hey Dia” Mari called out softly as the girl had sat back down. Dia flinched a little.

“It’s Kurosawa-san.” 

Dia's voice was stiff and not friendly in the slightest, almost sounding hoarse and strained. She still did not turn to look Mari in the eyes, a gesture Mari still found rather strange. Even people who didn’t like her always spoke to her face.

“Do you want to eat together at lunch?” Mari suggested. She definitely wanted to get to know her better. Out of all her classmates, Dia seemed the most interesting and different - if her attitude was anything to go by.

Dia gave her a look again, a sort of sideways glance. Her pupil was a little bigger this time and her brow was raised in surprised. She faltered before refusing and turning completely away.

Under Mari's careful observation, it didn’t seem like Dia had any friends. It was odd, she seemed rather ordinary at a glance. A hard worker, quiet, nothing too loud and there wasn’t a single aspect of Dia's personality that seemed to make her out of place.

Maybe it wasn’t Dia, maybe it was Mari that was the problem. Not everyone wanted to make friends with an odd foreigner. Mari didn’t like her chances, but making friends with Dia, who she had only met for a few hours, was a goal the blonde wanted to accomplish. 

Even though Dia had refused her invitation to eat lunch together, Mari had still been determined to find out more about her. Unfortunately, Dia was too good at avoiding her, and disappeared without a trace before Mari had even made it out of her seat. Disappointing. 

But another opportunity had approached, one which Mari wouldn’t let slip away form her. Her classmates wouldn’t bombard her anymore - they had already had their fill from break AND lunch - which gave her free reign at the end of the day to persist on her quest to befriend the odd girl.

“Hey! Kurosawa-san!” Mari shoved all her books into her bag. Stares from her classmates bore into her, but Mari ignored them as she tried to gather her belongings. Dia had a rapid walk, and was speeding away down the corridor with her dark hair splayed out like a cloak behind her.

Dia was ignoring Mari.

Finally Mari managed to gather her bearings and leave the classroom; bag under one arm and a stack of exercise books under the other. Having never been the most gifted at physical education, Mari panted a little as she raced down the corridor, past all the classrooms. Many eyes were laid upon her, but Mari paid them no attention and focused on her one target: Dia.

There was little doubt that Dia was by the lockers, changing her shoes, so Mari sprinted the final stretch. She managed to just catch Dia, straightening up to put her shoes back away. 

“Kurosawa-san!” Mari wobbled towards her and grabbed her hand.

A surprisingly physical gesture for someone she had barely known for a day and Dia visibly tensed. She didn’t turn or make a sound, leaving Mari chance to speak.

“Why won’t you let me be friends with you?”

From the coldness Mari had previously seen in Dia's eyes, she honestly thought she was going to get the typical foreigner rundown: “you’re too noisy” or “you need to keep your business to yourself”, but Mari waited patiently for her answer, whatever it might be.

“Do you want to know why?” 

Dia's voice was flat, almost monotone with the slightest hint of bitterness lacing it. Snatching her hand away, she spun around at the speed of light and for the first time Mari could see her whole face.

Two beautiful emerald eyes, her dark hair framing her pale face and sharp, intense eyebrows...

A birthmark.

Said birthmark, was rather large, took up a little less than half of Dia's face. It was dark on colour, and almost looked as if someone had taken a stick of charcoal and rubbed it across one side of the girls face. Dia's face grew into an angry snarl.

“Now do you see?! You don’t want to be friends with me!” Dia slammed her locker shut, “nobody want to be friends when I look like this...” she added quieter.

Mari was frozen in shock. The birthmark had taken her by surprise, but the most shocking thing was how Dia had addressed her - it seemed unlike her to raise her voice, let alone shout. People were staring at the two, whispering. With a final glare at Mari, Dia turned around and marched away with her arms swinging furiously at her sides - but not before Mari caught Dia's eyes dart to the audience they had gathered.

Mari felt her face burn red - as if she didn’t attract enough attention as it was. She couldn’t find it in her to chase Dia. She instead remained still, her arms drooping by her sides. The whispering increased around her.

Hurriedly, Mari skirted over to where she thought her locker might be, but in her embarrassment, failed to locate hers. She wracked her brain, trying to figure out where it was, but still thoughts of Dia plagued her brain.

Of course she still wanted to be friends. 

Dia seemed horribly lonely

**Author's Note:**

> it’s kinda sucky at the minute but I promise the good shit is coming. The chapters are going to alternate between characters perspective, so next up is Dia.


End file.
